Walter Willett

Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., is professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Willett studied food science at Michigan State University and graduated from the University of Michigan School of Medicine before earning a Master’s and Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He has focused much of his work over the past 40 years on the development and evaluation of methods, using both questionnaires and biochemical approaches, to study the effects of diet on the occurrence of major diseases. He has applied these methods since 1980 in the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II and in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Together, these cohorts, which include nearly 300,000 men and women with repeated dietary assessments, provide the most detailed information on the long-term health consequences of food choices.

Dr. Willett has published more than 1,700 original research articles and reviews, primarily on lifestyle risk factors for heart disease, cancer, and other conditions, and has written the textbook, Nutritional Epidemiology, published by the Oxford University Press , now in its third edition. He has also written four books for the general public.

Dr. Willett is the most widely cited nutritionist internationally. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous national and international awards for his research.